Smart Rules in Email with Custom Objects

[BRegan]

We have a unique HubSpot setup where multiple contacts could share an email address.  Because of this we have created a custom object called Patients that are associated with a contact with one email address for our sending purposes.

Smart rules for email modules are only able to be created by contact lists or life cycle stages.  Contact lists can be create with patient associated properties shown in the screenshot below. Is this the best way to organize/populate this active lists that feed into our automated emails?  The automated emails are sent through workflows that are drive by the Patient/custom property object.

[karstenkoehler · Accepted solution]

Hi @BRegan,

I'm not sure what exactly you're personalizing in your emails - but a contact list will flatten certain information, especially if a contact is associated to two patient records and meets the criteria of both. A workflow that enrolls patient records and sends automated emails for different patient records might send the same email multiple times because is of that - because the smart rule holds true. Even if you're thinking that the smart rule will consider the contact's association to record B, the filter for record A will still be met, and version A will be sent.

Why not create different versions of this email (without smart content, unless it's only referencing contact information) and place those in workflow branches? That way, an email will be correctly pulling the values of the associated patient record and contact directly.

No risk of HubSpot choosing the content belonging to the first smart rule that evaluates as true.

Best regards

[BRegan]

The purpose of this is to limit the number of locations we are making edits for when the copy of email needs to be changed, especially if it's information that is not in the smart modules.

In addition to this, any time we have a branch in a workflow based on link clicks inside of email we need to create a workaround of a workflow triggering from a link click inside each email, that workflow updating a property with the email name, and then an active list pulling in contacts who have had this property updated in x amount of days.  The "link clicked in email" branch in the workflow is then decided by if the patient/custom object is in that active list, and the property matches the name of the email associated with the click. If we had to create more versions of this email the we would need to make more workflows associated with those email clicks.  If you have a better solve for this long explanation, I would love to troubleshoot it!

[karstenkoehler]

@BRegan I understand the requirement, it's a very common one - but from what you explained, I don't think your personalisation and smart rules work as you expect them to, due to the reasons I explained (a contact can meet the criteria of multiple rules based on associated records and HubSpot will repeatedly pick whatever the fist is they meet, not the one that belongs to the associated object if it's not the first rule). Multiple emails are annoying but the only solution I see here, unless it's simpler than what I understood.